Allow me to start with a question: How many of you in here are aiming to go to a specialized high school? Most of you probably are, and this is a gifted and talented class after all. As many of you may agree; New York City’s Specialized High Schools are a doorway to huge opportunities. They have huge academic records and are public, meaning they are free to attend. Each year they choose around 18,000 students to go to these high schools and the admissions are based on their results on the SHSAT. Although it may be a good thing that students are chosen based on their performance on the SHSAT, the problem here is that there isn’t much equity.

I personally think that the DOE should get rid of the SHSAT because it isn’t really necessary. I am a student who gets principals recognition all the time and my fear is that if I take the SHSAT I might end up getting a low score, such as a 416; which is not even near a good enough score on the SHSAT curriculum. When I got a proposal from DREAM SHSI, I declined it because I thought it was too much work to go from schoolwork to test prep work. Even more, I have an aunt who is a former teacher of PS 36. Even she told me that the idea of the SHSAT is useless. Sometimes I go to her tutoring class to help her out since the parents’ of those students push them to do good and my aunt thinks I am smart enough to help them out. On the other hand, I am just there telling myself “I am so going to screw everything up,” and I am a very awkward. Being honest, I really don’t need to go to any test preps because my aunt and my cousin, who works at Optimum Coaching Center, can help me practice.

Now, if you take a look at the statistics from The Atlantic, “The three highest-status schools—Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech—have Black and Latino student populations of 4, 9, and 13 percent, respectively, far below the 70 percent in public schools citywide.” As you can see, very little amount of Black and Latino kids get a chance to get into the specialized high school they prefer. In fact, the rest of the student population is basically Whites and Asians. For example, a Hispanic student named Katherine Sanchez said, “I’m a Hispanic woman from the Bronx, I’m trying to get into Stuy. It’s unrealistic,” and Rodneyse Bichotte said, “I went to LaGuardia because I feared the admissions test was culturally biased.” This just shows that some kids don’t even feel confident enough to at least take the SHSAT because they fear they won’t be accepted due to their ethnicity.

To make the Specialized High Schools more diverse, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed to scrap the SHSAT. Instead, he wants “A system that would admit the top 7 percent of students at every public middle school in the city”(The Atlantic), by doing this he thought the schools will have more Black and Latino students. The problem with this new rule is that it has upset a lot of Asian parents. “Many Asian-Americans in the city believe that it will disadvantage their children, as they make up the majority of students as specialized high schools,” states CSNY. Later Kim Soo Hyung, the president of Stuyvesant Alumni Association, told the mayor that the proposal was more like “The Asian Exclusion of 2018”. On the other hand, CSNY states, “The plan’s defenders counter that African-American and Latino students are being excluded by the status quo and that a system based on grades and pulling from each middle school will be fairer than using an exam that favors certain demographic groups”. Even though I am South Asian, I support the plan because it does make the high schools a little more diverse than usual. If they go with the plan, the population of the Black and Latino at the specialized high schools will at least increase up to 45 percent, the three high schools combined. In addition, I think you shouldn’t really judge a student based on their grade from the SHSAT. According to de Blasio, “Some people are good at taking tests but earn poor grades. Other people struggle with testing but achieve top grades. The best educational minds get it. You can’t write a single test that captures the full reality of a person.”

Another reason why de Blasio wants to get rid of the SHSAT is that not everyone has enough money to afford the test preps. There are parents who save half of their earnings just for their child so that they would be able to take test prep classes. In a  recent speech, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “Now, I’d like to stop and say, I admire the many families who scrape and save to pay for test prep. They are trying in every way to support their children.” Moreover, in his speech, he even said, “Let’s ask ourselves: Why should families who can ill afford test prep have to spend their money on it? Why should families who can easily afford test prep have an advantage over those that cannot?”. This shows inequality because a child who has gone to test preps to prepare for the SHSAT will definitely have more knowledge about the test than a child who couldn’t go to any test prep class due to their parents’ low income. This is why a lot of intelligent kids don’t take the SHSAT despite the fact that they have the possibility of passing the 3-hour long test.

Some ways these problems can be solved are if the Department of Education actually paid more attention to why hundreds of such students with high scores on the state standardized tests don’t sit for the SHSAT, and why more than one-quarter of those who are offered seats don’t accept. Increasing the number of seats can also cause a small change. Even trying out de Blasio’s plan can at least show the people who oppose the idea that the proposal won’t harm anyone. If they really apply the plan, they will choose students fairly, since they will actually know whom to choose based on their academic performance from more than one test. More Statistics will mean more relevant info for why they should have a certain kid go to their school. Us as students can go around the school with a petition about this issue and show the end result to our principal. So that he can bring this up the the DOE and they might change their mind about the SHSAT. If Asians are so smart, then why are they so afraid of this plan? Won’t they be even more relaxed because they are mostly the top students and they won’t have to take any time-consuming test to actually get into a specialized high school? Some people think that the best schools are only the specialized ones, but schools like Bard High School Early College is way better than the 9 Specialized High Schools in NYC.

The debate on whether or not they should end the SHSAT once and for all is still active. Kids who guess also get into the high schools and this is definitely not fair to those who study and work hard everyday. The admissions test has many flaws, and the mania for test prep that has sprung up around hurts all children. Yet the residents of NYC must not pin its hopes on the State Legislature that has shown little to no interest for a change.  Instead, it should take the steps that are within its power to cause an action.